ABC’s gardening presenter helping local community design sustainable landscapes
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Award winning ABC local radio and TV gardening presenter Chris Ferreira recently presented Heavenly Hectares Property Planning Course in Geraldton to local life-style block owners and hobby farmers. This popular short-course helped participants design productive and sustainable blocks.
Mr Ferreira said, “In over 20 years of teaching I have never got tired of seeing the enthusiasm and excitement participants have for wanting to transform their properties to make them more sustainable, safe and productive. It is a real pleasure and it leaves me with the overwhelming sense that our land is in good hands”.
Partnering with NACC, Mr Ferreira’s presentation was tailored to help local blockers understand the landscape a whole lot better so that they can make the right decisions and gain the most from the rural experience.
According to Mr Ferreira, “for the trained eye the landscape is literally bursting with clues on what are the strengths, weaknesses and other characteristics of your land, what productive potential it has, what may be wrong with it and what will be needed to make it work effectively. All of which starts with being able to read your landscape.”
Mr Ferreira’s ‘whopper tips’ on how to read and manage your landscape include:
- For land with rocks near surface – it means sloppy ground prone to erosion that can be difficult and expensive to work, and hard to make a go of grazing and cropping, but it may be ok for returning to bush or perhaps selected tree crops such as bush foods and nut tree crops.
- For hard, uneven ground – it is an indication of heavy clay that is prone to waterlogging, so draining and choice of crops, seeding, fertiliser and weed control are usually needed.
- Bare sandy soils – it means the land has been overgrazed and has low fertility level, often drought prone, water repellent and prone to erosion.
- Pricky weeds – indicates nasty mismanagement of the land. They will usually mean the soil is degraded, so some serious charity work will be needed to bring this place back to black.
- Dying trees can be symptomatic of a whole range of problems including waterlogging, salinity, overgrazing or dieback disease, drought stress, climate change – all suggesting that the land has been worked hard and that some careful management and repair work will be needed.
